Press Shuffle
by NeverBeenToChina
Summary: A collection of stories based on my iPod on shuffle. Rating subject to change.


**So on VO there was some thread where you turn on shuffle and you have to write a story about the first five songs that come up, so I did. I think I'll do this often actually, to sort of keep me writing even if I have no ideas for other stories.  
**

**Songs:  
Mission (Japanese) – SeeU  
Carnival – Gumi  
Tako Luka Maguro Fever – Tako Luka  
I Wish They'd Just Die – Kaito  
Rolling Girl – Miku**

**Plot:  
Miku is a depressed student, rolling through her days and avoiding the pain. Gumi is a loner, who spends most of her time at an abandoned carnival on the edge of town. Kaito is a college dropout with anger management issues, who can barely pay the rent with the money he makes working in an ice cream parlor with two annoying coworkers and a neurotic boss. Even though they all live in the same tiny city, they have never once met one another. But can a spunky girl named Seeu and her pet octopus with a constant craving for tuna bring the three together?**

* * *

Miku stared up at the clouds. Today, even the vast, wide sky was gray, like everything else in her monochrome world, where nothing changed, so she would just keep rolling and rolling and rolling. A drop fell from the sky, landing near her eye and tumbling down her face, making it appear as if she was crying. Of course, no one took notice, but Miku didn't expect them to. The other students, all dressed up in their black and white uniforms, were too busy horsing around, cramming for tests, and sloppily making out to console a lonely Rolling Girl.

Blinking away tears, Miku silently stood and walked to a more secluded area of the schoolyard. As she did, she sucked in a mouthful of air, and held it. Sometimes, she just wanted to stop her breathing. But she wouldn't, so long as she could keep moving though life, numbing her pains and avoiding her cares. Her brain began to shout for her lungs to expand, to take in life-saving oxygen, but she bit her lip and ignored her body's instincts. She was almost at the little bench in the corner of the yard, and she was starting to feel light-headed, when a rare flash of color made her gasp. On the bench, smiling while viciously tearing a tuna to pieces, was a pink octopus.

* * *

Gumi looked down at her feet. She had stepped in a puddle, and the water was starting to soak through her socks and shoes. She laughed and started splashing and stomping, getting her clothes completely wet. Her hysterical laughing echoed off the abandoned rides and stalls around her, filling the rainy, silent air with sound. After Gumi had tired of this, she ducked under the roof the scarlet red merry-go-round to dry off.

As Gumi wrapped the tarp from one of the circus tents around her to warm up, she thought about what those poor kids in school were doing. _Probably learning about the Pythagorean Theorem or something stupid like that,_ she laughed again. She wondered how much school she had missed coming to the carnival. It had to have been at least two months. It wasn't like anyone cared, though. When she had discovered that there was a hole in the gate that surrounded the fairgrounds, she had told each of her teachers a different story. Mr. Hiyama thought she was on vacation in Uruguay, while Ms. Sakine thought she was with her dying half-cousin, and Mr. Kamui thought she was at her new job as an assistant to the CEO of INTERNET Co. And as for Gumi's fellow students, they never even bothered to get to know her, would they even notice if she randomly disappeared? Not that she was complaining. Gumi liked it that way. _Although…_ Gumi sighed, _it would be nice to have someone to share this Carnival with…_ That's when she noticed a sign taped to the wall of an adjacent stall –

LOST OCTOPUS

Name: Tako Luka

She is pink, and has on a headset. She loves tuna very much.

She was last seen on the corner of Prima Ave. and Lawson St.

$500 REWARD

IF SEEN PLEASE CALL:

524-634-7643

* * *

Kaito glanced out the window. His shift at the ice cream parlor was almost over, and he was itching to get home and away from his coworkers. There was the crazy green-haired chick, Sonika, and Rion, that sickeningly cute girl who always wore frilly dresses, and of course his neurotic boss, Ann Allen. Currently, Rion was on the phone with her boyfriend, Lui, and they appeared to be in a contest to see who loved who more, while Sonika was trying to perform a handstand.

"Kaito! Kaito, look! I almost got it!" she said as she toppled to the floor.

"I don't care." Kaito sighed.

Ann walked in. "I don't pay you three to goof off. Get to work!" she snapped as she examined herself in a little mirror, fluffing her curly golden locks.

"Ann, it's raining out. No one wants ice cream in this weather!" Kaito said, pointing out the window.

"I don't care." Ann said, snapping the mirror closed. "At least try to look professional. Sit behind the counter and, I don't know, read or something. Get off the phone!" she added to Rion, who squeaked in fear and hung up.

The three employees moved behind the counter. Rion started gushing to no one in particular about how wonderful Lui was, while Sonika tried to balance a pencil on her nose and Ann reapplied her lipstick for the seventh time in ten minutes. Kaito rubbed his temples and suppressed the urge to throw the tip jar across the room.

"I Wish They'd All Just Die…" he sung under his breath. The song he had written back in middle school had always helped him keep his anger under control. Well, most of the time. When that idiot professor had embarrassed him in front of the entire Music Theory class, there wasn't enough time to sing anything before Kaito hauled off and punched him in his smug, goateed face.

Suddenly the little bell that announced a new customer rang, jarring Kaito out of his reminiscence.

"Welcome to Sweet Ann's Ice Cream Parlor! How may I help you?" Rion said in her nauseatingly sweet voice. Kaito looked up to see a teenage girl with dark blue eyes and an abundance of light blond hair that was soaking wet from the rain. She wore a light orange hoodie and some old blue jeans, which were dripping water on the tiled floor. _Great, I'm going to have to mop that up,_ Kaito sighed.

"Do you have any persimmon-flavored ice cream?" she asked. Rion shook her head. "Oh. In that case, can I just have lemon?" Sonika got up and started scooping the ice cream, and the girl turned to Kaito.

"My pet octopus went missing. Have you seen her anywhere?"

* * *

As Miku approached the pink creature, it slithered away slightly, not as if it was afraid, but more like it was trying to draw the girl closer. And it worked. Miku kept stepping forward, and the octopus kept moving backwards, until it reached the edge of the bench. It jumped to the ground and skittered behind the bushes nearby. Miku moved some of the branches to find a hole in the chain-link fence surrounding the schoolyard. Looking through, she caught a glimpse of the octopus slithering down the sidewalk at an abnormally fast pace for a sea creature. After making sure the coast was clear, Miku got on all fours and crawled through the gap and out into the world.

The pink octopus was about to round the corner, and Miku took off after it, sprinting as fast as her legs would carry her. The octopus noticed this and sped up, dashing around the corner and down the street. Whenever it seemed Miku could reach out and grab the invertebrate, it moved just out of her reach and kept pushing forward. The creature led her all around town, and she tired, but never stopped following it. Eventually they ran into an old, abandoned carnival on the edge of town. _I've never seen this place before…_ Miku thought to herself. The octopus finally stopped at a crimson merry-go-round. Miku fell to her knees, panting heavily. After a few minutes of cooling off, she heard a light footstep.

"Who's there?" she asked cautiously, not expecting anyone else to be at the carnival.

"Oh, you're still here. I thought you left," came a voice from behind the center support pole, and a green-haired girl stepped out from behind it. "Do you go to Crypton Private School?"

"Yeah," Miku nodded and got to her feet. "Do _you?_ I've never seen you before."

"Well, I've been skipping school for a couple of months to come to the carnival, but yes, I am enrolled there." The other girl explained. "My name's Gumi."

"Miku. How come we've never met?"

"It's a big school, lots of kids…"

Miku shrugged. There was an awkward silence, in which both girls were keenly aware of how loud the rain sounded in the stark lack of conversation, and then a thud as the octopus fell from the rafters of the merry-go-round's roof and hit the floor.

"Hey, that's Tako Luka!" Gumi said as Miku picked it up.

"Luka? So it's a girl?" Miku asked.

"I guess."

"How do you know it's – I mean, _her_ name?"

"There was a flyer hung somewhere, it said she was lost," Gumi said.

"If she's lost, we should help her get home. Was there a number on the flyer?" Miku asked, setting Tako Luka down on the back of a brightly-colored plastic horse.

"Yeah," Gumi said, running out into the rain to retrieve the poster. She ripped it off the wall and brought it over to Miku.

"Great!" Miku said, and pulled out her phone. For once, she was actually going to use it. She dialed the number and put the phone on speaker. The girls held their breath as the dial tone rang.

* * *

"An octopus? As a _pet?_" Kaito asked incredulously.

"Yup! I know it sounds weird, but she's one of my best friends," the girl smiled as she took the cup of lemon ice cream from Sonika and gave her two bills and some change. "So have you seen her?"

"Sorry, I haven't," Kaito said, rubbing the back of his neck. This girl made him nervous for some reason…

"Oh. That's too bad," she pouted.

"Yeah… so, what's your name?" he asked, then chastised at himself internally. _What are you doing, dummy? If you talk to her, she'll think you actually _like_ her, and you can't let that happen!_

"I'm Seeu," she smiled. "What about you?"

"I-I'm… that is, my name is… I'm Kaito," he stuttered.

"Kaito. Pleased to meet you!" she stretched her hand across the counter. Kaito took Seeu's hand and at once realized how cold it was.

"It's freezing outside, why are you eating ice cream?"

"I don't know. I was passing by, and I felt like if I stopped to get some ice cream, something good might happen. Yeah, it's crazy, but so am I!" she laughed. "I guess I was hoping that someone here had seen Tako Luka," she gave a little shrug. "Oh well."

"It's not that crazy," Kaito told her. "One time I bought a horse-drawn carriage, and I don't even have a horse!"

"Why?" Seeu laughed.

"I think it was because – " Kaito began to explain, but then Seeu's phone started ringing.

"Sorry, I gotta take this," she apologized. "Hello?"

Kaito took this opportunity to think. _This girl isn't an idiot like everyone else… she's a little weird, sure, but in a good way… _And something clicked. _No, no, no, no way! There is no way you like this girl you just met! Absolutely not! Don't even think about it!_ His conscious scolded.

"You found her? Oh, thank you so much! Could you bring her to Sweet Ann's Ice Cream Parlor? On Oliver Lane. Yes, thank you again! See you soon!" Seeu bubbled. "Kaito, guess what? Some girls found Tako Luka at the old carnival! Is it okay if I wait here for them to bring her to me?"

"Yeah, s-sure!" Kaito stuttered, turning red.

Seeu frowned. "Kaito, I think you're coming down with a fever," she said, placing her hand on Kaito's forehead, but that just made him blush more.

"Don't worry, I'm f-fine…" he said, taking her wrist and moving her hand away. "Why don't you go sit down? I'll go find you a towel, you're still really wet…" Kaito rushed into the back room, leaving Seeu standing there, confused and hurt.

_Okay, Kaito, get a hold of yourself. You don't really like this girl, she's just really pretty is all. And funny, and sweet… stop it, you're doing it again! Just treat her like a normal person._ Just then, the bell on the door rang again, and he heard Rion's nasal voice ring out again. He took a deep breath, grabbed a towel, and went back into the main room.

Standing by the wet glass door were two highschool-aged girls, one who wore a black and white school uniform and was holding a rainsoaked poster, and the other who had green hair and red goggles and held a pink octopus, that was desperately trying to escape the girl's grasp.

"Who was the one who lost their octopus? Because we found her," the uniformed girl said, holding up the runny poster for all to see.

"Luka baby! I was so worried about you!" Seeu cooed, jumping up from her seat to retrieve her beloved pet. In response, Tako Luka attached herself to Seeu's face.

"Glad to see that you found her," Kaito said as he handed Seeu the towel.

"Awww! She's sooo cuuute!" Rion squealed.

"Well, if you'll excuse me, I'll be leaving…" Miku said, beginning to walk out the door.

"No, wait! Why don't you stay?" Seeu suggested. "We could have ice cream and talk and stuff!"

"I kinda ditched school to get here. I should get back before anyone notices I'm gone,"

"It's okay, I can forge a doctor's note for you." Gumi offered.

"Eh, why not?" Miku shrugged.

"Kaito, are you okay here?" Ann asked. Sonika and Rion had already left, and Ann was packing up her things.

"Yeah, I've got it."

"Good. I hope you know you're not getting overtime for this!" Ann waved as she walked out the door.

Kaito sighed. "Yes, I know. So, what ice cream do you all want?"

"Negi!"

"Carrot!"

"You guys have weird tastes. How about chocolate and rainbow sherbet?"

The girls thought for a moment.

"Sure." Miku said. Gumi nodded her agreement.

"And what about Luka here?" Kaito asked Seeu.

"She wants tuna, of course!"

"How about vanilla?"

Seeu laughed. "That works too."


End file.
